I prepare myself for rehearsals like I would for marriage. #MariaCallas

Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddam rules. #MariaCallas

I am not an angel and do not pretend to be. That is not one of my roles. But I am not the devil either. I am a woman and a serious artist, and I would like so to be judged. #MariaCallas

All those little notes all the legatos all the everything that comes with music is what you call technique. An instrumentalist knows how to make his notes well with the proper intonation because intonation is also a necessity to technique. #MariaCallas

Seraphine told me that I must have beautiful costumes, especially in operas that are static. I didn't have the money to make them. Why? For this first ten minutes the public has nothing to do but look at you. #MariaCallas

Love is so much better when you are not married. #MariaCallas

It's a terrible thing to go through life thinking that you have a rock on your side when you haven't. #MariaCallas

The critics said that I was tired at the end of Traviata but I took it as a compliment because I struggled to find this tired quality for her and it's dangerous. #MariaCallas

Love is so much better when you're not married. #MariaCallas

Music should be essentially simple and upon simplicity and beauty of line it can become great. #MariaCallas

Trills are necessary and they have to be well performed. Take Trovatore; Verdi and Donizetti used a lot of trills. They used them to express feelings so a trill is necessary as a technical skill for an interpreter. #MariaCallas

I belong to the givers. I want to give a little happiness even if I haven’t had much for myself. Music has enriched my life and, hopefully - through me, a little - the public’s. If anyone left an opera house feeling more happy and at peace, I achieved my purpose. #MariaCallas

I don't think much of my talent. Uh, I didn't even think I had a voice... I always used to sing for pleasure. I never even dreamed of having to have a career as a singer. #MariaCallas

On the whole there are two people in me. I would like to be Maria, but there is the Callas that I have to live up to. #MariaCallas

If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears - and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also - you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know. #MariaCallas

[On Trills] A trill is a necessity this is the equipment that goes with our instrument. In these operas that we preform abbellimenti must be dealt with physically and technically. One must have these to serve the music and be an honest musician. #MariaCallas

The full dress rehearsal, so there's no stopping unless it's something terribly, just like a performance with the critics, so you sing throughout with no interruption as it was a performance. #MariaCallas

First I lost weight, then I lost my voice, and now I've lost Onassis. #MariaCallas

I don’t like listening to myself – I don’t like the kind of voice I have. #MariaCallas

I prepare myself for rehearsals like I would for marriage. #MariaCallas

When you learn to really become a musician after a singer, you have to put your instrument to the service of music. #MariaCallas

In my poor words technique should be the equipment that one has in being able to to interpret. You learn the solfege, you learn the harmonies, you learn music. Then you learn how to interpret. #MariaCallas

Only when I was singing did I feel loved. #MariaCallas

I have to feel what I do. I have to like people to be with them. I just cannot learn the art of being a hypocrite. I wish I could. #MariaCallas

Real friends are very special, but you have to be careful because sometimes you have a friend and you think they are made of rock, then suddenly you realise they're only made of sand. #MariaCallas

I belong to the givers. I want to give a little happiness even if I haven’t had much for myself. Music has enriched my life and, hopefully - through me, a little - the public’s. If anyone left an opera house feeling more happy and at peace, I achieved my purpose. #MariaCallas

I dislike when critics treat me so cruelly because I know exactly what I do – I even know what I do worse! – I tear myself even more to pieces. I dislike being told that I should do this or I should do that. I know far too well what I should do. #MariaCallas

In order to learn to really become a musician after a singer, you have to put your instrument to the service of music. #MariaCallas

To sing is an expression of your being, a being which is becoming. #MariaCallas

Forget that you're singing - and these are the values - respect the values we try to be free for a minute. If you spoke these phrases, how would you speak them according to Bellinis style. #MariaCallas

Even though I did not like my voice I learned to accept it and to be detached and objective. My voice is unique as is everyone’s. It is not how we sing but the uniqueness we bring – like the way we walk or talk…one’s own unique persona. #MariaCallas

I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity. #MariaCallas

Music should be essentially simple and upon simplicity and beauty of line it can become great. #MariaCallas

I will always be as difficult as necessary to achieve the best. #MariaCallas

What I learned from Sarafine was that you must serve music, because music is so enormous and can envelop you into such a state of perpetual anxiety and torture, but it is our first and main duty. #MariaCallas

Women are not pals enough with men, so we must make ourselves indispensable. After all, we have the greatest weapon in our hands by just being women. #MariaCallas

They have taught me, and life has taught me that the last act is the most important, because, no matter how much and how well you've sung on the very few one or two or three to four first acts. #MariaCallas

Only when I was singing did I feel loved. #MariaCallas

First I lost weight, then I lost my voice, and now I've lost Onassis. #MariaCallas

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house. #MariaCallas

We cannot modernize opera too much because as it is, we must accept it, which is old-fashioned. We must give it a bit of fresh air and cut certain lengthy music repetitions. #MariaCallas

In order to learn to really become a musician after a singer, you have to put your instrument to the service of music. #MariaCallas

Rehearsals absolutely must sing in full voice for your own sake, for your colleagues sake and the main thing is to test your own possibilities. #MariaCallas

I don’t like listening to myself – I don’t like the kind of voice I have. #MariaCallas

To sing is an expression of your being, a being which is becoming. #MariaCallas

If you take the trouble to really listen with your soul and with your ears - and I say soul and ears because the mind must work, but not too much also - you will find every gesture there. And it is all true, you know. #MariaCallas

I don't need the money, dear. I work for art. #MariaCallas

In other words, sing exactly as it's written, nothing more, nothing less, which is the phrase that I call straight jacketing, faster infinitely strictly how the composer wrote it. #MariaCallas

In my poor words technique should be the equipment that one has in being able to to interpret. You learn the solfege, you learn the harmonies, you learn music. Then you learn how to interpret. #MariaCallas

ART is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours. #MariaCallas